Data on State Street Employees, Customers Goes
Missing

The Boston-based firm has begun sending precautionary
notifications to employees and some customers of the former
Investors Financial Services Corp. (“IBT”) that computer
equipment containing certain personal data was stolen from
a vendor’s facility.
According to a
press release
, IBT – a firm that State Street acquired in 2007
(see
State Street to Buy
Boston Financial Services Provider for $4.5B
) – had engaged the unnamed vendor for legal support
services.

The Boston Globe reported that a disk drive containing
personal details from details on 5,500 people who worked
for Investors Financial at the time – and on 40,000
accounts held by individuals whose pension plans or assets
Investors Financial had managed – had been stolen from the
vendor’s facilities.

State Street is offering free credit monitoring services
for two years to people whose data were compromised, in
line with other banks in similar situations.
The Globe reported that at the time of the transfer, the
data was encrypted – but spokeswoman Carolyn Cichon told
the Globe that the firm had unencrypted the information for
its work and stored it on the hard drive that was then
stolen.

Lost Data

Lost details included individuals’ names, addresses,
dates of birth, and, in some cases, Social Security
numbers. There is no evidence to date to suggest that the
data has been misused or that legacy State Street customers
or employees are impacted, according to State Street.

The theft was reported to federal authorities, Cichon
said, and to local ones the company declined to identify to
the Globe. Although the theft occurred in December and was
reported to State Street in January, State Street didn’t
disclose the breach publicly or to individuals until
yesterday because it took months to determine who was
affected, according to the Globe.

Information for those potentially impacted by the
data theft can find more information at